up to speed...

Well, the sky in Michigan isn't battleship gray anymore (on a regular basis anyway). So, I'm thinking it's time to get this blog up to speed.

The picture below will both present the only reasonable excuse I have for keeping blog in the dark and also catch ya'll up with the goings-on in our corner of the world.

That little piece of lawn art has left us a little pre-occupied in the last few weeks.

You see, for the last three years, nearly every car trip of 4 hours or more has brought up the "do we or don't we" conversation when it comes to selling our house and moving. Our talks included the idea of changing schools too, so it was a decision we didn't take lightly. As the girls got more rooted, we knew it was one we couldn't delay forever. But...apparently our max trip of 17 hours still wasn't long enough to give us a clear answer.

In the last six months, we haven't taken any car trips... instead... long conversations with each other on the subject gave way to shorter and more frequent conversations with God. Without going into a ridiculous amount of detail (although it's all pretty cool), we didn't necessarily find a burning bush in the yard telling us precisely what to do...but felt a strong pull to take a leap of faith.

We cleaned out the house of some excess stuff (that I don't think we ever needed in the first place) and got a realtor over to put the aforementioned art in the yard.

We broke the news to the kids and the easiest way to explain their initial reaction is to tell you that we found them kicking the sign and trying to pull it out of the grass the day after it went in.

Slowly, they warmed up to the idea and actually were oh so (wow) helpful getting the house cleaned up for showings. I was shocked they weren't as creaped out as I was about people milling about our house, dissecting it's contents.

In the six years we've lived here, I've found it a challenge to clean the house from top to bottom in one day...even one week! We started having two or three showings in a week...and I found myself turning into a not-so-merry-maid. I actually wondered if the kitchen floors would get water-damage from the amount of times I power-washed them in a week.

Getting ready for a showing became a science. Although, without fail, I would scrub the house to a sparkly, wonderful-smelling shine and in the last minutes before walking out the door, Julia would download a bit of not-so-fresh into her diaper and run a stream of ewwww around the house while I chased her with a creamy nutmeg room spray. Our house often smelled of a combination of things when we left...one time there was even a little smokey from a vacuum that exploded (from overuse, most likely).

Yet, within 27 days of putting the house on the market, we had an offer...that actually came from someone who never smelled saw the house in person. Strangely enough, they offered to buy the house the day before they saw it and after they flew in to see it, they were certain. Sold.

Two days later, we went to do some shopping ourselves. We saw six houses...and found that not everyone has creamy nutmeg room spray... We were a bit dismayed at first. It was tough to put ourselves in another house. It was kinda sad.

One house did stand out and we decided to bring the kids to see it the next day. They took to it immediately and within 15 minutes, they begged us to buy it. We don't usually buy them whatever they ask for, but when it came to that house...we obliged...and put an offer in that night. After being homeless for 62 hours, we found out the following morning, we were home owners once again.

That was last week and this week we are surrounded by brown boxes. We have until the end of May to stay in the house we brought two of our kiddos home to, celebrated birthdays, cried about things both happy and sad, took first steps, and made life decisions in. One of those decisions will bring us to a new house where we'll see many more years of memories unfold.

more to come on the new house....